happy hikers

I was organizing pictures today on my computer and finally took a look at the ones from this weekend and I just wanted to share some of them here because they made me smile. Not that they're extraordinary pictures, it's actually a lot of the kids' backsides :) and Sawyer was very much just not in the picture mood... but just the memory; the joy of the day, I just sat here looking through them with a big grin on my face. So for future scrapbooking reference...

We took the kids out for a hike this past Saturday afternoon. We planned on making a morning of it, but with the morning we had around here; trying to get everyone moving and to stop whining, arguing, fighting, and all around complaining long enough to get dressed and ready and out the door, for some reason seemed like an impossible task. We bagged that idea and just opted for an early lunch and nap. But as soon as naptime was over (I think we actually woke Sawyer up) we headed out to Babler State Park, which turned out to be awesome. Since it was late in the day, we decided to stick close to home and were pleasantly surprised by this park tucked in amidst the suburbs of St Louis. I couldn't believe how "out in the wilderness" it felt, even though we were only a little more than 20 minutes from home and barely 30 miles out from the Lou. Tons of hiking trails, bike trails, picnic and campgrounds... and a whole area for playing with tennis courts and a pool and such. It was beautiful.
So we picked a trail to try. The kids were excited. We were excited too, as we used to do much hiking before the kids. Even with the first couple of years with Savannah, we still kept it up quite a bit, but after leaving Oregon I don't think we've hiked anywhere at all with both kids. So this was Sawyer's first time on the trail... and probably the first that SJ really remembers. And they loved it! It was so fun to watch them running up and down the trails, so ready to go and excited to be on such an adventure! I so loved just watching them take it all in.
We only did a small loop... they just barely started slowing down as we were nearing the end of the loop and it was perfect timing to be back to the car and hop in to find a picnic area for a snack. Then by that time they had gotten their second wind and were running around the clearing playing hide-and-seek (behind the one tree!) and tag and just being silly. It was just the perfect day to be out!

So here's my boatload of pics for you... like I said, nothing special, just representative of our day and the kids having so much fun getting out for something different.

Savannah was only *slightly* perturbed that I requested she stop to pose for a picture... better than Sawyer though, who just refused and kept on hiking!...